


you showed me colours you know i can't see (with anyone else)

by botticellis (itomorian)



Series: super marvel(lous) [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Fluff and Angst, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Inspired by The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, Jaemin is Such a Charming mf hhhhhh, M/M, Meet-Cute, Non-Chronological, Non-Linear Narrative, Secret Villain/Vigilante Na Jaemin, Sex Talk, Spy!Ten, Ten is Fond at first sight, aka Natasha Romanoff but make it Ten Lee, as in they have conversation about it, dark themes, ding-dong time for content/trigger warnings!, i promise you that the fic Really isn't as scary as the tags make it sound, one tiny murder scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:02:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29395212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itomorian/pseuds/botticellis
Summary: Out ofallthe places that it could've been, Ten never thought he would end up finding his soulmate in the middle of the fucking job. Especially when said soulmate is about to well — kill someone. And he certainly didn't think that it would be his target — you know, the target that he has been assigned to take down tonight? (That target!)That target who goes by the name of Na Jaemin.Batman in a wig with a smile to die for, Na Jaemin.Billionaire on the streets, Vigilante in the sheets, Na Jaemin.Yes.Thatone.But it happens. And he does. So, Ten, for once in his life, is actually speechless. (Kun is probablynevergoing to let him live this down.Motherfucker.)
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Na Jaemin
Series: super marvel(lous) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2159388
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36
Collections: Challenge #5 — I heard a secret..





	you showed me colours you know i can't see (with anyone else)

**Author's Note:**

> started making it, had a breakdown. bon appetit.
> 
> the title is from illicit affairs by the loml taylor swift
> 
> thank u to the alw mods for arranging yet another fantastic round, love u all! <33
> 
> cw, tw // childhood sexual abuse, child abuse, violence, male sterilisation, murder
> 
> right uh also please exercise discretion when reading. while there are _**NO** explicit mentions_ of the traumatic experience, there _are_ dialogues that _heavily_ imply the childhood trauma. (i may have projected a bit too much onto jaemin's character, oops.)
> 
> oh also there's like. a teensy weensy murder happening at the end so that's something you may wanna watch out for.
> 
> hope u like reading this piece. :)

_The city looks a whole lot different from up here,_ Ten muses, staring at the skyline from the floor to ceiling windows of the banquet hall located on one of the top-most floors of the Na-Tower, one of Seoul’s highest skyscrapers. Home to the Multi-Billion-Won Industrial Enterprise of the Na Family, with a penthouse-apartment that serves as residence to their sole-heir and present CEO, Na Jaemin.

Which brings him to the current situation.

“Mark, what’s the status on the target?” He murmurs into the earpiece, hearing some typing sounds coming from the line while he scans the banquet hall for the face of his current target, said Old-Money Billionaire Jaemin Na, while the twenty-five-year-old smiles and shakes hands with dignitaries who have come from far and wide, wearing fucking [ sunglasses ](https://www.chanel.com/en_GB/fashion/sunglasses/pantos-sunglasses_gold-frame-brown-gradient-lenses_a71289l9515uni) inside the building. In the fucking evening.

People with money, gah.

“Well, it seems that _our_ target has found a target of his own.” Mark informs him, humming under his breath softly, before gasping and choking on whatever he was going to say next. Ten hears him take a deep breath before he says it anyway. “Ten. Tennie. That’s his uncle! Well, sure, not by blood but that man is known to have been Na Senior’s right hand before the Na couple passed away in an accident.”

Ten stills for a moment, but it’s only a moment. Blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, isn’t that what the saying was, originally? He wonders why familial ties are what fail people most often, then.

“That man has _literally_ raised him, Tennie.” Mark breathes in a sharp inhale, and Ten hears some more clacking of the keyboard before he notices the Star of the Night heading towards the private elevator that leads to his penthouse. "He's almost his family!"

“Family is just another F-word, Markles.” He sighs before stealthily following suit behind Batman in Silk clothing.

—

“You’re going to regret this, Nana.” Ten sighs a little hopelessly, though not because of the things that will happen tonight — or lack thereof — but because of the things that have happened already. The things that have brought him here. The things that have made him the person that he is today.

“Mhm?” Jaemin hums from the other side of the kitchen island, squinting at the tiny font written at the back of the bottle of condiments. “Why don’t we leave that judgment to the morning, hm, babe?”

Ten curses himself just a little bit as he feels warmth crawl up the column of his neck, but reminds himself that it is okay to feel butterflies because of this.

_It’s okay to have feelings, and to blush, Ten. No one’s going to hurt you for it._

“Tonight is probably not going to go the way you want for it to, Jaemin.” Ten stresses, biting his lip. 

Jaemin shrugs, dumps the bottle in the trash unceremoniously and begins walking towards him, and Ten can only stare quietly as Jaemin closes in, coming to a pause at an arm’s length from him. The younger man cocks a hip on the barstool by the counter and leans on to the polished granite to rest his pretty face on his palm, looking at Ten with a playful grin.

“Mm, tell me more about how you think that I think this night is gonna go.” He clicks his tongue and winks at Ten. It’s obnoxious and adorable all the same. “Go on, mon petit biche.”

“Do you really want to have the sex-talk right now?” Ten hesitates, raising an eyebrow at the other man, only half incredulous. This is kind of _not_ how he'd wanted to go about having the so-called sex-talk, but what's done is done, he guesses.

"If you want it that way, I am more than okay with it, my darling." Jaemin murmurs with a lazy, genuine smile in Ten's direction. 

Ten feels like he might just puke because of his nerves.

"I’m not. I’m not the person for sex, Nana. I could just take it or leave it. Honestly, I prefer the latter." He mumbles after a pause. Swallows when he senses Jaemin's fingers hovering close to his own on the polished granite countertop.

"Then, I believe that it’s for the best that sex is kind of a big _No_ for me, too." Jaemin smiles, sweet, sweet man who has surely suffered more than he lets on, with the most mesmerising brown eyes that Ten has ever seen, now dulled over by the ghosts he keeps hidden in the dark.

Ten reaches out with quiet, gentle fingers and pulls his newfound soulmate's hand into his. Jaemin's hands are clammy with sweat, and Ten does not find it in himself to mind that. 

It's nice to know that the man gets nervous too, just like any other person. Even though they're anything but normal, you know? (Ten has to often remind himself that being a spy, or a secret vigilante are not very common lifestyles.) But, it's still nice to see the more genuine side of his so-called soulmate, when ninety-percent of the time the man has to put up a façade, or uses the Signature-Na-Jaemin-Charm as a defence-mechanism.

"So, what did you want to do tonight?" Ten asks, curious now, stepping closer to Jaemin, gauging his reaction to know if it is okay for him to do so.

Jaemin visibly loses the tension from his shoulders and scrunches his nose at Ten cutely, softly rubbing circles onto the skin of the elder's knuckles.

"May I… touch?" says he, and when Ten nods without a second thought, Jaemin wraps a careful arm around his waist and hugs him close.

Ten wraps his arms around his shoulders and steps even closer, smiling to himself when Jaemin makes a soft sound at the back of his throat.

_Fuck._

_I'm so fond of you._

"'Wanted to watch something with you. And then, if you're into it, maybe a kiss or two could be nice." Jaemin speaks his words soft, clear, and the slightest bit hesitant. As if he's afraid that he might say something wrong and drive him away after finally having gotten through to him, asking for a chance, dedicatedly, until Ten had finally relented.

"Just _one_ kiss? Or _two?"_ Ten teases him, raking his nails carefully over Jaemin's scalp.

Jaemin makes some sort of sound between a chuckle and a sigh.

"This is me telling you that I like kissing, silly." Ten giggles hopelessly, looking into Jaemin's dazzling brown eyes once more. They twinkle with what looks to him like _joy._

“Mhm,” Jaemin rolls his eyes playfully and smirks, upturn of his mouth far more tender than playful. "I like _you,_ silly."

Later that night, Jaemin is shy. Shy when Ten looks at him. Shy when Ten pulls him in. Shy when Ten asks him if this is okay, when he answers _yes._ He’s shy when Ten kisses him for their first time ever, when Ten crawls even closer in. 

Jaemin isn’t shy when it’s his turn to give in.

—

“Say that all you want but that man is still the one who has given us the job for tonight.” Mark sighs in confusion as he probably looks at all the corners of the event through the security cameras that he has doubtlessly made his own, now.

“Makes you wonder why, huh?” Ten murmurs as quietly as he can while tries not to give himself away. He shouldn’t. He knows he won’t. _This isn’t daddy’s first rodeo,_ he’d say when Kun would fuss over him whenever he gets hurt. 

(Sometimes he gets little scrapes and scratches on purpose, just so Kun can have something to fuss over. 

Kun likes feeling needed. 

Ten loves him.

Deep down, they’re both just a little bit lonely.

Their friendship is all that they have in the name of family.)

“What do you mean?” Mark’s voice on the line squeaks in the good ol’ Confused-Mark-Lee fashion and Ten barely resists the urge to facepalm.

“Markles Sparkles, dear boy, some things…” He clears his throat. “There are some things that you just can’t speak about.” Ten forgoes explaining what he means, implying it through a simple riddle of a sentence instead.

While Na Jaemin and his Legal Guardian (also, the man who came to their organisation with the... _Contract_ — if Ten may say so — and proof of the younger Na’s apparent wrongdoings and murder spree. Feels phony to Ten, but who is he to question it when the elites don’t? Rich people and their crooked moral compass or whatever.) take the private elevator hidden from the attendees’ eyes, Ten tries to figure out the most unnoticeable way to get up there.

After some long thought, and to his immediate disdain, he realises that there is only one way. 

The ventilation ducts.

_And to think I dressed sexy. What a fucking tragedy._

Some minutes of squeezing and crouching later when he finally makes his way in through the ventilation by the kitchen with his suit now rumpled and hair askew, Ten slyly slinks his way around the penthouse trying to find the showstoppers of tonight’s show. He isn’t very certain about what he expects to see when he finally finds the two men, but it certainly isn’t what he comes across.

Na Jaemin and the other man, to put it as benignly as he can, in a _compromising_ position.

Ten holds breath and hides himself in the shadows between the open door and the inner side of the wall of the office.

He can only watch in rapt acuity as the scene changes completely, and before five seconds have passed, Jaemin has the older man pinned to the glass windows by the throat, fingers squeezing the life out of him. 

“I’ve waited so long for this, dear Uncle.” He murmurs with a laugh, gleeful, a bit creepy in its intensity to be honest, and Ten chooses to jump into action before things escalate any further.

He steps out of the shadows. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Na Jaemin’s fingers on the sexagenarian’s throat do not give even as he turns around to face Ten. The man pinned to the wall gasps and chokes as the glass behind him begins to crack and pop, and begins gasping out incoherent things as the life-force continues to be squeezed out of his body.

“Oh dear, whatever is the infamous _Black Mamba_ doing here?” Jaemin’s voice is just the slightest bit amused, and no-wonder annoyed because of Ten’s interrupting him. He releases the man from his hold like he’s nothing but a sack of shit that he’d like nothing more than to get rid of, and takes a step in towards Ten’s direction.

Ten stares at the man behind Jaemin, coughing and wheezing now, pounding on his chest to get more air in.

“How about you move away from the man behind you, Mister Na?” Ten asks with thinly veiled warning.

“How about I don’t?” Jaemin refutes, smirking still, unbelievably cocky, and Ten can’t do much besides stare at him curiously, trying to understand what’s going on behind the brown gradient lenses shielding his eyes.

“Then, I will have to make you.” He says.

“Oh.” Jaemin bites his lip, mouth curving into a wide, wicked grin. “I’m starting to _want_ you to _make_ me.”

“I will play nice one last time, Mister Na.” Ten hesitates to kick his ass right away, for what reason, he doesn’t know. “Do _not_ do this.”

Jaemin only chuckles. 

“On one condition,” he says.

“Tell me.”

“Tell _me,_ have you ever read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, written by Ursula K. Le Guin?” asks Jaemin and Ten almost feels whiplash with how absurd and out of nowhere the question is, but he backtracks and gathers his wits.

“Yes, I have?” It comes out a bit like a question instead.

Something changes in the man standing in front of him.

“Then. _Walk. Away.”_

Ten’s eyes widen when the implication of what Jaemin has just said hits him, and he finds that all he is capable of doing in the light of that new information is… gape. Open his mouth, draw a breath in, exhale, and close it. Much like a fish out of water would.

“W-What?” Ten feels his composure shake and wobble. “Is-Is— Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I suppose I am.” He says and chances a look at his wristwatch before making a small, displeased sound. Then he taps at his wristwatch once before bringing it close to his face. “Jeno, please make sure that the guests don’t miss me. _At all.”_

Then he looks back at Ten.

“This is a shimmering city full of unbridled joy, and uncontainable happiness. Do you know who pays the price for it? It is a child. _Always_ a child. A helpless _child_ who must suffer in endless filth, and darkness, and misery; and any sliver of kindness will tear the utopia apart and turn it into a dystopia!” Jaemin scoffs, unkind, angry, and Ten sighs, not knowing what to do, or say.

“I am _going_ to kill this man, and _then_ you may do as you like, or have been assigned to.” Even through the sunglasses, Ten feels the intensity of Jaemin’s gaze piercing through him, and feels his vision flicker for a millisecond, blindsiding him and giving him goosebumps. “But you will _not_ stop me.”

_“Welcome to Omelas, Black Mamba.”_

—

They’re taking it _slow,_ apparently.

Well, that’s how Kun called it, and seeing that he’s probably the only person that Ten knows with some knowledge of well-functioning relationships — despite him not being in any himself — Ten will take his word for it.

They’ve gone on nine dates now, and this is their tenth, today. Ten rolls his eyes, smile threatening to break out when he remembers Jaemin’s God-awful pun that he’d made when the two of them had met earlier tonight. _(Happy Tenth Date, Tennie.)_

They’re watching a movie today, and it’s a trashy romantic-drama about star crossed lovers who end up as soulmates, and Ten wants to be enjoying this, but he isn’t able to. Not fully. In spite of the awful plot and screenplay, the characterisation of the protagonists feels all too real. The people on the screen are flawed humans. They’ve made mistakes. Committed atrocities. But they only had the best intentions.

And isn’t that how it is?

_Sometimes the worst things start out with the best intentions._

On the way back from the cinema hall, Ten has a hard time _not_ thinking about this thing of theirs. Him and Jaemin. Wonders how it could _not_ be doomed to failure when they’re on opposing ends of the spectrum. Regardless of their belief systems which are more or less aligned with each other’s.

“Why are we doing this?” He murmurs, looking at Jaemin driving next to him.

“...Do you not want me to drop you off?” Jaemin asks, flashing him a sideways smile.

“I’m a bad person, Jaemin. I’ve killed people for far less reason. Sometimes just for money.” Ten murmurs, looking up at the roof of the car. It doesn’t bother him anymore, the things he does for a living, what he calls work, but maybe it would hurt a little if Jaemin suddenly decided that Ten is the worst kind of monster. “I can’t give you a family either, if you ever wanted it.”

“Back at the Red Room where I was made into whatever I am today… They—uh—they’d sterilise you. One less distraction, apparently. Good for the job. Makes us efficient. Makes us monsters.”

Jaemin keeps on driving without saying a word.

When they arrive at the intersection where Ten prefers being dropped off at, Jaemin rolls the car to a slow stop. “I walked away because _I_ was their one atrocity. I’m the reason that this utopia is falling. And I won’t stop. I _will_ keep on killing as many of those bastards as I can. So, rest easy, my darling. I’m a monster all the same.”

Ten sighs, swallows when he understands the implication, and gives Jaemin’s hand a soft squeeze. 

Jaemin presses a hesitant kiss to the back of his fingers before Ten gets out of the car and walks away without a look back.

Later that night, Ten’s phone alerts him of a text message from Jaemin.

_I like you, and want us to work. I hope you could someday want the same._

_And if you still dont, I won't judge you._

For the first time in _years,_ Ten cries.

—

Out of nowhere, Ten notices the so-called Uncle about to hit Jaemin on the head with a vase from nearby and between Ten gasping a _Watch Out!_ , Jaemin swerving to avoid the hit because he’d somehow seen it coming already, and the old piece-of-shit swinging away wildly, Jaemin’s sunglasses fall down amidst the clatter, and then it hits Ten in full force.

The flicker of colour.

His vision that he’d been trained to recognise the so-called colours based on their grayscale values with at the Red Room suddenly comes _alive_ and closes in on him with such vividity that _no_ amount of preparation, nor thorough memorisations could have ever prepared him for. And this time, he really does stumble on his feet with the force of his vision transforming, bursting at the seams with endless, _endless_ **colour**.

He’d never realised that the skyline was so _gorgeous._

Jaemin gasps, kicks the old bastard in the chest and watches as the balding man goes flying out the window, falling down to his death, and turns back to look at Ten. His grin this time around is as cheeky as it comes.

“Oh?” Ten breathes out.

 _“Oh.”_ Jaemin beams like God’s own ray of sunshine. 

“Please keep your schedule open for our first date, my darling!” Jaemin calls out as Ten all but sprints out of the penthouse.

—

The rest, as they say, is history.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> they find out later (when researching from a diff angle) that what nana is doing with the elites, his "henchmen" are doing with the public.
> 
> // sexual abuse, child sexual abuse
> 
> just had a realisation after talking to my best friend that it might read a bit confusing, so here's to clarify that when jaemin refers to himself as the child of omelas ["i walked away because i was their one atrocity"], the misery, filth, and darkness is a euphemism for the sexual abuse.
> 
> pls feel free to ask away if u have any questions, thank u :)
> 
> right. uhhhh so that was something.
> 
> also there are multiple mcu references here coz mcu brain go brrrrrr
> 
> thank u so very much for reading, i hope u liked reading this piece. :D <3
> 
> uh u can also find me on twitter, [here!](https://twitter.com/glitteryongs)


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